


Don't Say You're Too Far Gone

by scarletrebel



Series: We Are Guardians [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Game), Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4966648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletrebel/pseuds/scarletrebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort-of sequel to Hallowed Out. </p>
<p>Gavin goes off the grid and Michael decides he's had enough of his teammates trying to sort out their issues alone. </p>
<p>(AH Destiny AU created by madkingray on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Say You're Too Far Gone

**Author's Note:**

> The 'We Are Guardians' series is a place for me to put all of my AH Destiny AU one-shots. Some will be related to others but overall, you can read each as an individual story.

_**Last Word Ghost Fragment 3:**  
‘We all woke that night, closer to morning than the previous day. A crack of gunfire split through the wood. Then more. Far off, but near enough to pump the blood. A familiar ring. “Last Word.” Jaren’s sidearm. His best friend. Then another. A single shot, an unmistakable echo calling through the night. Hushed, cutting. One shot, dark and infernal. Followed by silence.’ – Shin Malfur_

* * *

It had been a couple of weeks since Ryan ran his sword through Gavin. No one had heard from the Warlock since, except Michael of course who had tracked him down and begged him to come back to the Tower, to no avail. Ryan went so far off the grid after that, Geoff nearly had a smackdown with Commander Zavala. The Titan mentor apparently made one too many accusations about Ryan’s sudden disappearance.  

Gavin wasn’t exactly fairing any better. Never one to show just how effected he was, like a coiled spring waiting to snap.

So Michael put himself on standby mode after carting the Hunter away to the Cosmodrome and having to listen to  _I’m fine Michael, really I’m fine don’t worry stop worrying why is everyone worrying I’m fine_  for a solid thirty minutes before Gavin would just tell him what had happened. It was fucking annoying, he couldn’t deny that, but necessary. The same could be said of the fact that he was currently trying to find out where the fuck Gavin had fucked off to.

Gavin was supposed to be on a mission with a couple of other Hunters, Caydes half-hearted attempt at keeping one of his own busy. But Gav was a no-show, leaving the other two Hunters to carry it out themselves. When Michael caught wind, he decided to check on his friend.

In the aftermath of something like this, they all had a way of coping. Ray and Michael had thrown themselves into the Crucible, Ray favouring the Iron Banner every time it rolled around. Jack and Geoff both found themselves on some sort of precipice, just floating around the Tower aimlessly and trying to be helpful  _somewhere_. As if they had reverted back to the Guardians they were when first brought to the Tower. And Ryan and Gavin, they ran. Ignored. Pushed the problems down until they festered and became much bigger than when they had begun.

Michael decided to start at the Cosmodrome, an area no higher in danger than the Tower for a Guardian as powerful as Gavin was, and himself. It was the perfect place to find a quiet spot and forget the rest of the universe for a while. So Michael hopped on his sparrow, cruising around Old Russia and asking other Guardians if they had seen a bright yellow and blue Hunter around. Michael may as well have spoken to the fucking wind for all the help it gave him.

And he looked _everywhere_ , the Forgotten Shore, The Steppes, even into the fucking Refinery, but no sign of Gavin. Every quiet place Michael could think of was Hunter-free and he was beginning to decide to just give up, to just talk to Gavin when he got back to the Tower.

(But then he remembered that that never worked. Just talk to Ray when he got back to the Tower, just talk to Ryan when he got back to the Tower. That never worked, they never fucking came back and he couldn’t convince himself that it would be any different this time. So he got back on his sparrow with a resigned sigh and kept looking.)

He ended up in The Divide and spotted a Fallen ship come in to drop off reinforcements. Beyond where the Fallen landed laid a small opening, what used to be a loading bay but now lie in ruins and open to anyone. Michael followed his gut.

After stomping over the Fallen, he went through the door, his feet disturbing a puddle that echoed all around him. A small tunnel led him out into a bigger room shadowed by a giant fan to his right, scattering the natural sunlight over him. To his left, a huge wall of metal wiring, with a small hole in it.

So he bent down to get through the hole, and followed the familiar sounds of Fallen into a bigger room. He didn’t even break a sweat getting through them, but still no sign of Gavin. He went on, traversing the ruined home of mankind’s first technological advances, claimed now by the Fallen banners of the House of Devils.

A couple of dark corridors, steel bridges and falling lights later, he came across a steel shutter. Or, what was left of it. Only the steel that touched the walls remained, a huge hole ripped in the middle of it, singed with solar fire and still burning. At least now he knew that he was headed in the right direction.

His Ghost popped up then, telling him it had a better idea of where Gavin was. So the little light lead the way, through dark rooms and tall halls of vacated machinery. Eventually Michael saw sunlight peeking through a door, down a small flight of stairs, and exited to a wasteland of cars and collapsed roads, adorned with rusted signs.  

“Oh," he said to no one in particular. “I know this place.”

The Devils Lair was one of the first Fallen houses to situate themselves on Earth. How fitting it was that they sat themselves a top the destruction and chaos that had claimed the lives of so many innocents.

He glanced over the flock of rusted cars, tried to imagine scared people driving them, families trying to get inside. To get on that last ship off of the planet, the one that still remained grounded even to this day. A grim reminder. He wondered if the humans, now skeletons against fraying leather seats, knew that they were doomed even before they managed to get inside the Cosmodrome.

Following the cars lead him to Gavin, sat on a small rock formation overlooking the hoard of vehicles. He was sat so still, only the bright colours of his shader and the grim look upon his lilac face assured Michael that it was in fact his Hunter teammate.

“Hey,” Michael said when he approached. Gavin only looked over his shoulder and nodded. Michael sat down next to him.

“Is Cayde pissed?” Gavin asked as Michael crossed his legs.

“I don’t know. He probably will be, though.”

“He didn’t send you?”

Michael looked at Gavin then. His eyes were glassy, his mouth a thin line. He shook his head, and Gavin went back to staring at nothing.

“Kind of a depressing place to run away to, Gav.”

Gavin frowned further. He looked down at the ancient wreckage.

“They were so close," he said, and then furrowed his brow. “How did that last ship get downed, anyway?”

Michael couldn’t blame Gavin for not knowing. It was human history, told differently to himself as a child than Gavin would have heard as an Awoken Guardian.

“The Fallen were overrunning cities outside of the Cosmodrome, and Earth was already turning into a shit show at the time. So lots of people were boarding spaceships and trying to get the fuck out. But with the last spaceship, I guess a lot of people got scared, you know? They wanted so badly to get off the planet. But when they finally got inside the Cosmodrome, the ones that did, they started riots. The place was so fucking overrun and they were so fucking scared. They started fires which ignited the fuel lines of the Refinery which lead to that last ship. It exploded the pipeline and grounded it forever. Then the Fallen came, killed everyone inside, it turned into a slaughterhouse.”

“They damned themselves.” Gavin muttered. Michael didn’t take kindly to that, but he gave Gavin the benefit of the doubt.

“What’s going on, Gav?”

The Hunter didn’t answer immediately, so Michael took his helmet off and let it rest in his lap as he waited.

“I’m just. Scared.” Gavin whispered finally.

“Fucking, no shit.” Michael replied with a smile on his face. Gavin huffed.

“I mean – I’m not – It’s different, Michael.”

“Different how?”

Gavin ran a hand over his chest plate. A small look of discomfort passed over his face.

“Are you scared of Ryan?”

“I’m – kind of?” Gavin admitted, looking ashamed of the fact and quickly expanding on it. “I’m more scared of, well, us. As a team.”

“What?”

“Well, there was Ray. And I mean, he has an excuse I guess, he didn’t really have that much of a choice but. Ryan’s just. You know. He  _took_  that sword. He talks to the Hive all the time. He’s – can we even call him a Guardian anymore?”

Michael didn’t answer that. He didn’t know how. Gavin rattled on, regardless.

“He’s turning away from the Light. It seems that way, anyway. And I’m just. Trying to figure out which one of us is next.”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” Michael knew he sounded accusatory, but it was hard enough trying to understand the way Gavin thought most of the time.

“I don’t know! I’ve just been thinking, you know?” Gavin was getting a little bit more animated, trying to explain himself and get his thoughts off of his chest all at once. “So many Guardians have turned to the darkness before, kicked out of the Vanguard and banished from the city. It could’ve been Ray, it might bloody well be Ryan this time around – and if it’s not, who then? We’ve started making a bad reputation for ourselves, Michael.”

“A bad reputation?” Michael repeated, incredulous. “We brought down the fucking Vault of Glass, we killed Crota’s soul, and you think that’s bad?”

“But at what cost, Michael? A cost we never seem to be able to just deal with!”

_“Just deal with?”_ Michael’s voice rose, which made Gavin retreat back into his stoic state. The Titan knew he’d made a mistake, so he tried to refocus the conversation.

“So, what? You think Ryan’s going dark side?”

Gavin sighed resolutely. His reply was small yes, chased away by the wind that had picked up. It fluttered through his cape behind him.

“I always thought that Ryan was the most… I don’t know, devoted. The amount of time he spent in the Grimoire, everything he knew about our enemies. I never thought it’d be him, you know? And if it was easy enough for him to turn then... What about the rest of us? What about me.”

The way Gavin spoke like Ryan was already too far gone made Michael worry. He wondered briefly if any of the others felt the same way.

“You’re not gonna – Gavin,” Michael didn’t continue until his friend looked him in the eye. “I won’t let you. I didn’t let Ray, and I’m not gonna let Ryan.”

“What if you can’t stop me. What if you can’t stop him. It’s not going to be as easy as just, pulling off a suit of armour.”

Michael ignored the sense of déjà vu, ignored just how much Gavin sounded like Ryan. He ignored just how right the two were.

“You’ve got no reason to worry, Gavin. Warlocks are, tricky. They’re more… I don’t know, susceptible to it. They’re more in tune with the Light than I think any of us are, and I guess maybe that makes them more likely to… Go dark side.”

Gavin didn’t seem to acknowledge him, so he continued in a feeble attempt to explain.

“I mean, Hunters don’t really have anything to – you know. Osiris is a goddamn bedtime story, Toland is infamous. Hunters don’t have anyone to-”

“Dredgen Yor.” Gavin said, and a pit opened in Michael’s stomach.

How could he forget. At least Osiris and Toland had the peoples best interests in mind when they broke the rules, when they were kicked out it was with a heavy heart. But Dredgen Yor.

“I’m a fucking moron.” Michael said, and told himself that Gavin’s exhale was supposed to be a laugh.

“No one talks about him. For good reason, I know,” Gavin fiddled with what could hardly be called a strand of grass by his knee. “But they act like I don’t – Jack and Geoff, even you. You all act like I don’t understand what it’s like to be so scared of turning into-”

The words left Gavin then. Michael understood, but kept quiet in case Gavin wanted to say more.

Instead, Gavin pulled something from his hip. A hand cannon unclasped from around his belt. It was impossibly black, adorned with ruffles down its sight. A venomous glow breathed inside of it, and the chamber was tiered, sharp enough to cut through flesh. Michael recognised it immediately.

“How long have you had that?”

“Before. Before Ryan. Before Ray, I think,” Gavin answered, running a hand along the guns chamber.  “It’s not the original. I don’t think it is, anyway.”

Michael was going to ask why he’d never seen Gavin use it. But the Hunter kept talking, and answered Michael's question for him.

“I use it in Crucible, mostly. It’s pretty devastating. I don’t like using it around you guys because I never wanted you to think that I, you know, that I-”

“That you approved?” Michael offered, and Gavin nodded.

“That I was, I don’t know, approving, romanticising. He was a monster. When other Guardians tell me I’m sick, that I’m glorifying him just by using it. It’s not that bad. If you did, if Geoff did.”

Michael nodded then, letting Gavin know that he heard him. That he got it. They fell into a small silence. Wind whistled past Michael’s ears, gunfire in the distance not loud enough to make him look away from Thorn. Gavin still held it in his lap, one hand around the handle and one resting on the chamber.

Gavin quietly asked Michael how much exactly he knew about Dredgen Yor.

“I know that Thorn was his weapon, that it – well, the one he had – was forged or, at least changed by the Darkness, like he was. I know about Jaren Ward and Shin Malfur, the other Hunters. When Yor fell to the Darkness he killed them. Well, it’s thought he did. He killed Jaren, and then Shin took Jarens gun – The Last Word – and went after him. I’m not – I’m not sure what happened then though.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gavin muttered. “No one does.”

Another silence. Michael looked up at the wall and followed the top of it with his eyes. He followed the cracks in the concrete, the brown pipes and steel bars sticking out of it. Then his gaze fell down to the rusted cars, centuries old. His eye landed on a skeleton, sat with an open jaw on the seat of a small vehicle. There were some reports, from the height of the Golden Age, bitter in the way they were written. They argued that the great walls of the Cosmodrome were not built with the intention of keeping the Fallen out, but of denying civilians simple access.

"I went to the Grimoire," Gavin’s voice warbled slightly. He looked about ready to break, finally. “You know, reading Shins report -- when Yor killed Jaren, I thought that Yor had killed himself afterwards. Shin said that there was a firefight and then silence, and then he heard two bullets. But Yor was gone and Jaren was dead, and I thought, I thought Yor might have-”

Gavin breathed in, long and gasping and Michael felt the pit inside of him grow wider.

“If, if Ryan goes, if he loses it. Loses the Light, inside of him. We’re, we’re going to have to-”

“Gavin-”

“ _Michael_.” Gavin’s eyes were wide and desperate and Michael lost himself in them. The same way you would when watching a tornado destroy everything in its path.

Michael couldn’t tell Gavin that it wouldn’t come to that. He couldn’t lie. Not to Gavin, not when he was like this, curled up on himself and yet more open and vulnerable than Michael had ever seen him. Not after what Ryan did. Gavin was so far from idiot it annoyed Michael sometimes. The Hunter couldn’t remember to bring fucking synthesis on an important mission, but by all means he was able to read between the lines. See what was important. Ask the hard questions.

“Let’s just,” Michael was surprised to find his own voice breaking. “Let’s just cross that bridge when we get there.”

“But what-” Gavin choked on his own words. “What if it’s me, Michael? What if I turn, I don’t - I don’t want to do that. To the Vanguard, to you, or Geoff, I’m so terrified and we’ve never talked about it before and I just-”

Michael knew what Gavin was asking but he couldn’t _he couldn’t_  consider that. He never did for Ray, he couldn’t for Ryan, and he couldn’t even consider it as a precaution for Gavin. Not even for his teammate who used the hand cannon of a Guardian who killed hundreds of innocents. His friend who thought that humans who wanted nothing more than to survive had damned themselves in their desperation.

So he ripped Thorn out of Gavin’s limp grasp. He stood up with determination, letting his helmet roll off of his lap. He looked at the exotic weapon once, and flung it as hard as he could away from them, away from the wall, away from the destruction behind them. It stayed in the air a long while, becoming a small black point in the distance. They didn’t even hear where it landed.

Gavin stood abruptly then too; his mouth slack jawed as Michael turned back around and grasped his shoulders.

“I won’t let it get that far, Gavin. I won’t,” he kept his voice as steady as could. “It won’t happen to Ryan, okay? And it won’t happen to you. I don’t care if you find Dredgen Yor’s dead fucking body and put on all his armour, okay? I don’t care if Ryan becomes a fucking Hive God, I won’t let you, any of you, turn to the Darkness. It’s just not going to happen. I won’t let it happen. Trust me.”

The Hunter was shaking in Michael's grasp, trying hard to fight tears that were already rolling off of his cheeks. Michael pulled him closer, placed a hand on the back of his head and supported Gavin’s body as it wracked out months and months of uncertainty and fear.

All Michael could do was hold him, and keep nodding as Gavin whispered  _I trust you_  over and over, the weight of the words settled deep in Michael's mind.

* * *

A few weeks later, Xur had returned to the Tower once again and placed himself in the hangar. Gavin came running out of it with a spring in his step that Michael hadn’t seen in a while. 

“What’s got you so happy?” Michael asked as the Hunter joined himself and Ray by the Vaults. 

“Picked up a new exotic.”

“Wow, shocker.” Ray said dryly, not looking up from the data pad he was using to store materials in his vault. 

Gavin payed him no attention, and unclasped a hand cannon from the back of his belt. He presented it to Michael, seeking approval. 

“The Last Word, huh?” Michael said, not helping the smile at his lips. 

“It’s not the original,” Gavin told him. “They never bloody are, but I don’t care. It’s a reminder, more than anything.”

“A reminder of what?” Ray joined the conversation, looking at the gold plated and intricately detailed weapon in Gavin’s hands. 

Gavin looked at Michael, and placed the gun back on his hip. He told Ray it wasn’t important. 

Ray looked at Michael who shrugged, the smile still plastered on his face. Ray just rolled his opticals and told them to get ready to go to orbit. 

Whilst still a part of a story laced with revenge and murder, The Last Word was once the firearm of a Hunter who strove to fight for the Light, who died for the Light, who tried to turn his best friend back towards the Light. 

Gavin might have said it was a reminder, but Michael couldn’t help but feel that it was a promise, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Go follow madkingray on tumblr for more info and headcanons on the au!


End file.
